Consider what happened to you. In exchange for this ticket, American Express required that you apply for a card and spend money. Lots of money. Now who is that helping? You?

While this is somewhat besides the point, we’re talking about spending $1,000 on a credit card. Something tells me that this lady would have spent the $1,000 anyway, so let’s not blow this out of proportion. From the perspective of a credit card company, $1,000 is hardly “lots of money.” Of course that’s the least of it.

Likewise, airline loyalty programs dangle “free” tickets and other perks in front of their frequent fliers. But in exchange, they not only demand your loyalty, they also require you to do stupid things, like make so-called “mileage runs” designed to reach one of their generally meaningless elite levels.

They require you to do stupid things like mileage runs? Huh? If you fly the amount of miles required for status — and the thresholds couldn’t be clearer — there’s no need for mileage runs.

As if that’s not bad enough, the second half of the sentence is even dumber. “Meaningless elite levels?” Are you kidding me, Chris? I’d love to know which airlines Chris has status with (if any, something tells me he flies maybe once a year, while posing as a “travel writer”), because the airlines I have status with give me a lot in return: free upgrades (domestic and often international), generous mileage bonuses, lounge access, elite check-in/security/boarding, etc. That’s meaningless?

So after my delay and misconnection this past weekend, United sent me the following email: Dear Mr. Lucky: You have the right to expect great service from us, and we know we were not at our best during your flight with us on February 01, 2009. Please…

Per this thread on FlyerTalk, it looks like we’ll see a new Hilton credit card with the following benefits at the end of the month: -Up to 40,000 Hilton HHonors® bonus points with first purchase (1) — enough for up to five free nights (2) -Up to…

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Comments

I read this story in my weekend paper’s travel section. And I thought: was the author drunk when he wrote this? Or did some newspaper editor mangle the response somehow? Because it really didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

come on, they’re only trying to sell newpaper, most no-so-frequent flyers would like to hear that miles are worthless and eilte status are useless, frankly, i’m glad there’re people saying things like this out there, one less person to flight for that upgrade with me.

All things being equal, I think the less said about MRs the better, and if something is said, better that it be disparaging rather than encouraging. Elliott’s article was dumb to be sure, but again, I don’t have a problem with discouraging the general population from seeking status via el cheapo MRs.

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